Prospera's Island Revisited: Dev Virahsawmy's Toufann (In memory of my beloved mother, Nirmal Virahsawmy Mooneeram)

Authors

Roshni Mooneeram

Abstract

Dev Virahsawmy is the first post-colorual Mauritian playwright to use Creole as dramatic expression and remains the figurehead of the theatre in Creole. This article focuses on Toufann (1991) and the fascinating cultural and literary productions that have stemmed from the 'unexpected transfers' 1 of this translation/adaptation of The Tempest into Creole. In the post-colonial context, rewriting often begins as a specifically political project, out to challenge and overturn the ideological assumptions of Eurocentric canonical works. However, to see all post-colonial rewriting as a constant process of writing back to the centre is a limited view. In this article, I examine some of the strategies that make of Toufann an adaptation of The Tempest that opens up possibilities of other aspirations and needs, possibilities of other cultural productions; in other words, clear evidence that the absorption and transformation which Kristeva sees as inherent to all texts is in this instance a self-conscious and dynamic process.

Recommended Citation

Mooneeram, Roshni, Prospera's Island Revisited: Dev Virahsawmy's Toufann (In memory of my beloved mother, Nirmal Virahsawmy Mooneeram), Kunapipi, 21(1), 1999.
Available at:https://ro.uow.edu.au/kunapipi/vol21/iss1/7